That Will Teach You
by Thegood-thebad-myfanfiction
Summary: 2 shot, modern AU. Xellos has no idea what yoga is, and Filia learns that 'show, don't tell' is not always the best course of action.
1. Chapter 1

"Where are you headed?" Xellos asks. A yo-yo that was on the coffee table sails toward him. He disappears and reappears instead of dodging. This routine is well worn.

"Yoga." Filia says as she stuffs her things into an already bulging cloth tote bag.

"Oh?" He hovers just above the couch, a scratchy green number he hates.

Her eyes dart around for the thing she knows she forgot but still can't remember. "You would hate it."

"Really? How kind of you to invite me!" The last time she said he would hate something it was frozen yogurt. She had thought the trendiness and supposed health of the option would turn him off, but his sweet tooth had won out.

"No, really. It's fun and relaxing and make people deliriously happy to be alive. Releases all sort of endorphins." With that she dives under the coffee table. She should just get a reflective case. Her sensible black one is far too easy to lose in the shadows.

Xello's eyes open and almost pop out. "You're wearing pants." He says dully. They aren't even pants, they're leggings for Darkness's sake.

Filia straights up again blowing schmutz off her phone. "You can't do yoga in a skirt."

"Can't you?" Xellos leers. He knows what's going on. Humans have opened up a lot about this lately, and it only stands to follow that Filia would too. He bites back a laugh. He never thought he would live to see the day, immortality non-withstanding. "I would think if one was going to a sex club a flippy little skirt would be just the thing."

Filia chokes on her own breath. "A-a what?!"

"It's quite alright, dear. You're a grown woman of, what is it now? Seven hundred years? Val is finally old enough to go away for the summer and you thought you would have a little fun. I understand. Really, I do."

The expression on her face knowing that he has figured her out is priceless. "No wonder you've been so calm lately." He continues. "Just what a healthy sex life will do." His smile grows further. "Or is it a sick one?"

"You're the one that's sick!" She screams, pulling her mace from her tote bag. "Why would you even-you-you- I'll show you!"

Xellos's reflex's tell him to duck, so he is caught off guard when she grabs him by the wrist and pulls him off the couch.

"You're coming to my class." She says as she pushes out the door.

"You have to take a class?" He asks as he floats along beside her, the temptation to tease her outweighing his annoyance at being bossed around.

She snorts so hard smoke issues from her nostrils, but she does not let go. Outside she flags down a taxi and during the drive she grips Xellos so tightly he would be waking up with bruises if only he had blood vessels to break.

"And I was trying to protect-" She mutters through gritted teeth, stopping abruptly.

The taxi stops and Xellos lets her lead him out. They stop at the door of a store between a dress boutique and a vegan restaurant. Xellos peers into the enormous front window and sees a dozen women sitting in a circle talking, all dressed more or less like Filia is.

"What's-" Then a dizzying wave of nausea hits him. "My lord." He staggers backwards, Filia's firm grip now important for keeping him upright. "It-it's like ten Amelias fused together into a mega princess."

A smile flickers across Filia's face. "Have you been watching cartoons with Val again?"

It's a good thing Xellos hasn't eaten for a while or else he would be vomiting all over Filia's sandals. "Can we go?" He whispers. He no longer has the energy to teleport.

"Not until you admit that this isn't a sex club."

She could have just brought him here to distract him, but it has worked. Xellos can't risk all the time it would take to bicker with her about this. "This isn't a sex club. Why, there's so much holy energy in there-" He can't talk. Talking makes his head spin. A whole 360 exorcist deal, and the principle is the same in both cases.

Filia balks. She wanted him sick, but he looks like a slug with salt sprinkled on it. Panic rattles her stomach and crawls up into her throat. "Let's go get some fro-yo or something." She says with forced cheer.

With that he turns into dead weight and falls to the ground. He isn't breathing, his energy focused elsewhere. She drops to her knees and attempts to scoop him up off the pavement.

"Filia." He says, his voice high and thin without breath. "I can't feel my body."

"Is that bad?" She has one arm under his head and the other under his knees when he evaporates. A cool purple mist settles around her and then there is nothing.

Filia likes to get to class early and help Miss Chan set up. That afternoon Miss Chan finds her outside gulping back tears and insisting that nothing is wrong. Chan calls her a cab and does not ask why her palms are stained the color of a grape popsicle.


	2. Chapter 2

Can you be arrested for killing someone that doesn't exist? Can you kill something that doesn't technically have a particular corporeal form? Sure he was fond of his little purple bowl cut, fond enough to wear it all the way to the twenty first century when it was finally starting to come into style, but that wasn't his real body. So could a person actually kill him? Did I kill him?

These thoughts have been going round and round in Filia's head for the last three days. She has been going to work (building code inspector) and doing her running and talking to her friends, but every second that she isn't completely focused on something else, these thoughts start sneaking into her head.

She got a letter from Val the same afternoon that she-she didn't make it to yoga, and she still hasn't opened it. If she does she will want to write back. If she decides to write back she will want to tell him what happened to Xellos. She doesn't know what happened, though. She might never know. Monsters aren't very forthcoming about these things and if she said what she had done it might count as a breach of the treaty and-

Filia throws the covers back and scrabbles over her bedside table for her phone. She has been reading a lot of fluffy fanfiction lately. It doesn't have a special place in her heart, but she can focus on it. Not the plot (generally unnecessary) or the characters (she knows them) but the mechanical act of reading, processing the dark words against her bright screen, can blot out other thoughts.

Her back is starting to hurt from being hunched over her phone so long when there is that familiar rift in the atmosphere and a high nasal voice whines, "I see you've been soooo worried about me, Filia."

Her head snaps up. Her eyes can't understand the darkness of her room after starting at the screen for so long, but it doesn't matter. She hurls herself forward off her bed anyway. They hit the floor so hard Filia gets a second degree carpet burn on her knee, but she doesn't care.

"You're alive!"

"And you're still heavy. How has all that-"

She throws her arms around his neck and squeezes, a gesture that is simultaneously "I love you" and "shut the heck up".

Xellos manages enough breath to laugh. "Filia, I'm trying to upset you here."

"You already did enough of that."

"This was your fault." He says with a bewildered expression,

For a second she buries her face in his chest. It's cool and smells like burnt chocolate. Unpleasant, but after smelling it for most of her life now it is comforting, like your father's noxious cologne or the marlboro lights that killed your grandmother. It's awful, but a part of you links it up with all the wonderful memories and suddenly it is the best smell in the world.

With that she props herself up on her elbows and pretends that she pinned him in a fight. "It was not! You were the one who accused me of going to a sex club. I just wanted to set you straight."

"How were you to know that a dozen people were feeling ridiculously happy to be alive? Oh wait, isn't that exactly what you told me-"

"Shut up." She says, pushing herself off him. "And get off my floor."

He stands too. "You owe me now, you know."

"Xellos, you know I can't owe you a near death experience, right?" She sits with a thump on the edge of her bed. Maybe now she can finally get some sleep.

"Well, you owe me something. That was incredibly painful."

"Not an excuse to do something painful to me."

Xellos snaps his fingers together and even in the dark Filia can see his eyes glint. "How about I take you to a sex club?"

With that she is chasing him downstairs, mace in hand, her tail slapping at her legs.

"Do you realize what a bastard you are?!" She roars over the sound of her pounding feet. "Four hundred years perfecting this freakin' form and you can still rile a tail out of me!"

Xellos deftly dodges the blunt instrument and smiles at her. "Isn't it nice to know we haven't lost our spark?"


End file.
